3.4 Analysis of the Community Composition of Insect Pollinators
The distance matrix of Bray–Curtis dissimilarity was calculated in R to plot non–metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to analyze Insect pollinator communities in four studied habitats (forest trial, grassland, managed habitat, and open trial). A stress value of 0.15 cleared convergence of NMDS ordination. Vector fitting of environmental variables showed that elevation, humidity, atmospheric temperature, and flower resource abundance were significant (Table 3; Figure 4). Flower possessed the significantly high NMDS1 score value of 0.615(P < 0.001, R2 = 0.63, Table 3). Elevation and humidity were significantly negative with NMDS1 score values –0.508 (P=0.009, R2=0.67) and –1.00 (P=0.036, R2=0.05) respectively. The highest compositional abundances of species were found associated with the flower which was at lower elevation (Positive end of NMDS1). Similarly, high species compositional abundance was seen in the managed habitat and open trail (Positive end of NMDS1) which were again at low elevation.
Pollinators composition in four habitats are significantly different (Adonis, p < 0.001) with a significantly strong strength (ANOSIM, R=0.6164, p < 0.001). Simper analysis showed thatXylocopa tenuiscapa (0.7036), Danaus genutia (0.6975), andPelopidas agna (0.6851) were three species for different compositions between Forest trail and Managed habitat. Similarly,Ceratina denticeps (0.7043), Xylocopa tenuiscapa (0.6930),Graphium sarpedon (0.6873) were three species for the difference in composition between Forest trail and Open trail. Further,Syritta orientalis (0.7019), Eoseristalis himalayensis(0.6942), Lasioglossum albipes (0.6864) were three species to contribute to the difference in the composition between forest trail and grassland. In managed habitat and open trail Andrena kathmanduensis (0.7034), Neptis hylas (0.6983), andAndrena gorkhana (0.6931) were three species to alter the pollinator’s composition while Elaphropoda impatiens (0.7048),Lethe verma (0.6977) and Precis iphita (0.6909) in managed habitat and grassland. In the open trail and grassland Eristalinus taeniops (0.7007), Pieris brassica (0.6950), and Graphium sarpedon (0.6834) were three species indifferent in the composition.